On the Outside
by Sashile
Summary: Episode addition and spoilers to "Inlaws and Outlaws". Ziva's morning run is interrupted by someone she didn't expect to see, and she finds it's not as lonely on the outside as she previously thought.


**On the Outside**

_Disclaimer: I still don't own anything having to do with NCIS, the TV show. However, if I do something stupid at work, I'm sure I'll have something to do with the real-life NCIS, but probably not in a good way._

_Summary: Takes place a day or two after the end of "Inlaws and Outlaws". Ziva's morning run is interrupted by someone she didn't expect to see, and she discovers that it's not as lonely on the outside as she previously thought._

_A/N: This is different than my other one-shots in that there are random mentions of Army doctors not wearing their uniforms properly :) Also, there is no Tiva, because, quite frankly, season seven hasn't given me any openings for any. *sigh*. I'm going to keep my personal feelings about the show to myself at the moment. _

* * *

The shoes were new and felt new, and were just the latest thing in Ziva's life to change.

Although she carried herself well at the office, her time at the terrorist camp in Somalia didn't leave her without her scars. Growing up, she used to roll her eyes when Aunt Nettie claimed that she could sense the changing weather in her aging joints; now, after the injuries from interrogators who were rather…imaginative, at times, she knew exactly what the older woman was talking about, especially in both ankles and her right knee. And with the recent drastic changes in the weather in DC, she was most certainly feeling her injuries.

She tried running with shoes that weren't old—she bought them when she returned to DC, a pair of her usual size and model of Brooks running shoes—but they just didn't feel right anymore, like so many aspects of her life recently. Stubbornly and foolishly, she tried running through it, telling herself that everything would return to normal if she just tried hard enough, but the only thing that happened were more aches and pains. She finally resigned herself to the situation and found a new running store, subjecting herself to a full gait analysis. The exercise physiologist didn't say anything about the scars on her feet and ankles, but after ringing up the pair of Asics GT 2150 shoes, mentioned that it wasn't unusual for a stride to change after surgery or trauma. After his own stress fractures, he switched to a new model of shoe and never went back.

That was a week ago, and this was the first time she was going running.

She made sure she had the card key to her room at the Navy Lodge before zipping up her lime green running jacket—another recent purchase—and heading toward the frigid air outside. She knew it was time for her to get a new apartment, but despite having that thought every morning as she was leaving, she couldn't even bring herself to even do an internet search for vacancies. There was something about getting a new place that required a sense of permanence, and as Tony had made it abundantly clear over the last few days, her role here was entirely transitory.

She swallowed her annoyance at her partner's recent actions—really, she wished he would just say whatever it was that was bothering him so much and get it out of his chest—as she pressed play on her iPod and broke out in an easy jog, trying to find a pace that was easy enough to get used to the new shoes, and fast enough to warm her in the colder-than-crisp air. She really didn't understand weather in DC; last week, it was in the sixties and comfortable. This week, she wouldn't be surprised if it started snowing. She shivered as she ran, finding herself wishing that Roy's hat hadn't been destroyed when her old apartment exploded. She frowned at the thought; even before the explosion, it had been over a year since she had worn the bright orange hat, and she honestly didn't know why she thought of it now.

After a few winding blocks into the running route she mapped through the National Naval Medical Center base, Ziva was just finding a decent rhythm when another figure jogging toward her caused her to stop in surprise. Damon Werth similarly slowed to a halt, and for a long minute, they just stared at each other in silent scrutiny. "What are you doing here?" Ziva asked to break the silence.

"Agent Gibbs arranged for me to stay at the Navy Lodge until I'm done with my deposition," he replied. She raised her eyebrows in surprise; that couldn't have been easy for even Gibbs to arrange, considering the fact that Werth was dishonorably discharged and didn't have privileges on military bases. "I gave my last statement yesterday. Flying out of DCA later today."

"Where are you going?"

He just smiled and shrugged, not answering the question. She nodded slightly at that and didn't protest when he turned around to jog in the same direction she was going. "You got a hair cut," she said a minute later. He rubbed the top of his high-and-tight and smiled sheepishly, giving her a glimpse of the boy he must have been before taking his perceived deficiencies into his own hands.

"Finally found a good barbershop," was all he said.

* * *

Damon Werth stood across the street from the entrance to the giant National Naval Medical Center complex for what seemed like hours, staring at the sliding glass doors and the "WELCOME ABOARD" sign above them, remembering the last time he had seen that hospital, so juiced up he barely knew up from down, much less what was going on around him. Everything looked different now, both from his clarity of vision and the construction that was going on all over the base. He caught flashes of images he weren't sure were real or not: Seven West, the locked psych ward; a Silver Star by his bed; a drive to Walter Reed he still didn't know how he managed; a Navy captain crumpled on the ground after he attacked.

He had been using illegal performance-enhancing drugs, attacked a captain—an unarmed psychiatrist—and stole the man's car. He was lucky they just gave him a dishonorable discharge instead of tossing him in Leavenworth for a few years.

"I don't get it, either." He blinked in surprise at the words and turned to face a cute brunette Army doctor, her hands deep in the pockets of her unbuttoned black trench coat. At least, he assumed she was a doctor, judging by the captain's bars on her coat and beret, the stethoscope half-hanging out of her pocket, the ID badge clipped to her shirt, and the fact that was blatantly showing two uniform violation—the unbuttoned coat and the hands in the pockets—without care for who saw her. She gestured at the words above the doors. "I keep trying to tell them that this is a hospital, not a ship, but nothing gets through to these sailors." She tilted her head to the side. "You aren't in the Navy, are you?"

"No," he finally said. "I'm a Marine."

She smiled at that for reasons he didn't quite understand before she turned and continued into the building, slipping off her beret as she crossed through those glass doors. A few minutes later, he walked through those same doors. He caught a glimpse of her down at the end of the hall toward the pediatrics clinic, her coat flowing behind her like something out of _The Matrix_.

He ended up getting lost in the long hallways and areas closed for construction before he gave up and asked some guy in scrubs and a white lab coat where the barbershop was, getting directions in terms of decks and corridors and bulkheads, and understood what that Army doctor was talking about. He found the place, though, so maybe there was some logic to whatever system the Navy was using.

The kid waiting before him was wearing the winter woodland digital camouflage uniform of a Marine, his sleeves rolled up in a way that he supposed was to look tough, despite the fact that it was barely forty degrees outside. Werth wanted to talk to him, but then realized that they had nothing in common. When it was his turn in the chair, the barber asked how he wanted it done, and he heard himself replying, "High and tight," before he could even comprehend the question. Afterwards, he paid the guy the six dollars and left the hospital.

* * *

Ziva knew that the pace she set was much slower than Werth could run—it was much slower than she could run—and she told herself it was because of her injuries, not because she wanted to talk.

"How have you been?" Werth finally asked. "I haven't seen you since…" His voice trailed off, and she knew exactly when he was talking about.

"Things have been…difficult," she said, without knowing why she didn't give a standard, non-committal answer. Before she had the time to comprehend what she was doing and what she was saying, she found herself telling him about the events of the past spring and how she spent her summer, because somehow, she knew he would understand. She knew that getting kicked out of the Corps for being on steroids was nothing like volunteering for what was essentially a suicide mission, but he had been in war, and he knew what it was like to wake up one morning and find that the world no longer made sense and that everything he spent his entire life preparing for was gone.

Once she started, she couldn't stop, continuing to talk about things she hadn't even _thought_ about, much less vocalized, as they continued their run. They went past the brick building of the military's medical school, onto a poorly paved trail through the woods along the back fence of the base, dodged a construction zone that wasn't there the day before, waited for traffic by the main gate—_they're never going to let you become a citizen if you don't know basic traffic laws_, Tony's voice mocked in her head—and jogged past the entrance to the hospital. Ziva was still talking, and Werth still quietly listening, as she avoided looking at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute before turning down the road that took them back to the Navy Lodge.

She finished with her plans to take her citizenship exam as they slowed to a walk in the final approach to the entrance of the Lodge. They stopped in the lobby and began to head in opposite directions before they both stopped. As when they had seen each other at the road, they simply stared at each other for a long second.

Werth was the one to break the silence. "Take care of yourself, Ziva," he said honestly. She smiled thinly and nodded in response.

"You, too, Damon." She gave him another smile before turning and heading for the room that had been her home for the last two months, where she stretched her seemingly always sore muscles before climbing into the shower.

As she merged onto the Beltway in her usual manner, she realized that for the first time in a long time, not a single joint in her body was aching.


End file.
